Posts by Joshua

Though I cannot remember the source just now, I read recently that the two days set aside for celebrating Epicurus (his birthday and the 20th) were regarded by his detractors as emblematic of his gluttony. Metrodorus was only given one day, the twentieth, which he shared with Epicurus.

It strikes me that there are several passages in Diogenes Laertius beginning with words like "the wise man will....", or "the wise man will not..."

Where does that kind of framing fit in here?

May not be helpful, but always worth a watch. He addresses Cassiu's question of 'framing'.

Reminds of the time George R. R. Martin discovered the word 'leal' and used it in every 4th sentence...in a sequel. Pretty jarring!

Ha! Another book I didn't get too far in. I'll try to get back into this. And yes, I will examine your rendition of that poem, Pacatus

Probably a non-starter in this particular game. I did actually play 0 A.D. a few years ago, and recall it being unusually difficult for a Real Time Strategy game. The object in RTS games, traditionally, is to gather resources, build a base, field an army, and destroy the enemy. These games are usually designed in such a way that the average match lasts around an hour.

What you are proposing would be very unusual for a game like this, and would be more appropriate for something like a minecraft server or some other sandbox game. The kind of game where there are no real goals, and nothing one actually must do.

Unfortunately Audible discontinued its "lending" feature last April. That's where most of my 'reading' is done these days.

Ironically, I decided on Saturday to start reading through a self-curated "banned books" list. I'm keeping track of that on the 'Wall' on my profile. You can finally find out how poorly-read I really am!

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But memories, things that minds do, like remember things and talk about them, depend on brain activity. No brain activity, no mental process.

This is impossible to prove, of course, but one good line of evidence for it is the observation that progressive brain damage progressively deteriorates cognitive and motor function.

Henry David Thoreau's spyglass, Concord Museum.

Thoreau on the Synoptic View--literally, things "Seen together" in their proper relation.

THE Thomas Gray!?

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas… | Poetry Foundation

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

www.poetryfoundation.org

This was a favored poem in my youth. Eclipsed now perhaps by Philip Larkin's poem in a similar vein:

Philip Larkin poem Church Going

The House of Authors in Autun, France

The Mosaic of the Greek Philosophers in Autun - Mosaic Blues

The mosaic of the Greek Philosophers decorated the floor of a wealthy Galllo Roman villa of Augustodunum, capital of the Edui Gallic tribe.

mosaic-blues.com

A very good point. Cicero's complaint about the Epicureans was that there were too many of them in his day! And it was noted elsewhere that many were seen defecting to Epicurus' camp, but few from it.

I, too, have long been an enthusiast of the Human or, as I prefer, the Holocene Calendar. It has the feel of a very deep sense of time.

A Disgruntled Tourist Smashed Two 2,000-Year-Old Statues in the Vatican Because He Was Denied a Meeting With Pope Francis | Artnet News

The two damaged artworks from the Chiaramonti Museum were described as "minor works" and are now at a conservation laboratory

news.artnet.com

The sculptures were described as 'minor works', whatever that means--they were two thousand years old. It has not been reported which two were broken.

I've gotten curious about this anonymous translator again. Let me summarize (randomly) what I think I know.

• The edition was published in 1743
• by Daniel Brown II, Publisher, print/bookseller, stationer, in London ‘near Temple Bar’, 1704-1762. Son of Daniel Browne.
  
• There may have been a Daniel Browne III in the same business;
  • "BROWNE, Daniel, bookseller, Catherine Street 1779L. Bankrupt May 1779. Poss. the Daniel Browne listed by Plomer."
• The copy of the 1743 edition on archive.org was donated with the personal library of John Adams to the Boston Public Library (he also owned the Creech translation, and a copy with his signature survives. He despised Lucretius, as he reports in a letter to his son)
• The engraver was not Renee Guernier, but probably Louis du Guernier II. He was not the translator (and how John Mason Good managed to screw that up is beyond me; he quotes the translator himself saying "Our language" etc.--it would be strange for a Frenchman to describe English as "Our language")
  • Draughtsman, etcher, engraver, book illustrator, possibly a goldsmith; born Paris son or nephew of Louis du Guernier, miniaturist of of same name, (1614-1659); studied under Louis de Chatillon; moved to London in 1708 and worked as 'a good designer, etcher and engraver, especially (of) small historical subjects for books or plays'
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Du_Guernier

That letter by John Adams;

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Dear Sir

I have been confined, with a cold for three weeks and the family have been generally affected in the same way: We have not heard from yours for some time. I long to see you all: but the Weather and the roads will keep us, at a distance I fear for some days if not weeks. I have read Seven Volumes of De la Harpe in course, and the last Seven I have run through and searched but cannot find what I chiefly wanted, His Philosophy of the 18 Century from the Beginning to the End—that revival of the ineffable Nonsense of Epicurus as related by Lucretius not as explained by himself in his Letter in Diogenes Laertius. I am in love with La Harpe. I knew not there was such a man left.—If I had read this work at 20 years of Age, it would have had, I know not what effect.—If it had not made me a Poet or Philosopher it certainly would not have permitted me, to be a public Man. I never read any Writer in my Life, with whom I so universally agreed in Poetry, Oratory History, Philosophy, Morality and Religion. I find him too perfectly persuaded as I have been for forty years, that Greece & Italy are our Masters in all Things and that Greek & Italian are the most important Languages to study—My Love to L. & G. your / affectionate and respectful Father

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‘Tell us not that that is right which admits of evil construction; that that is virtue which leaves an open gate to vice.’

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VS 29. To speak frankly as I study nature I would prefer to speak in oracles that which is of advantage to all men even though it be understood by none, rather than to conform to popular opinion and thus gain the constant praise that comes from the many.

A rock and a hard place?

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1) Joshua do you have a cite for the precise way you quoted " By convention sweet and by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention color; but in reality atoms and void."

I like that version as making a very clear point, but maybe that is someone's interpretation?

νόμωι (γάρ φησι) γλυκὺ καὶ νόμωι πικρόν, νόμωι θερμόν, νόμωι ψυχρόν, νόμωι χροιή, ἐτεῆι δὲ ἄτομα καὶ κενόν (Tetralogies of Thrasyllus, 9; Sext. Emp. adv. math. VII 135)

Sweet exists by convention, bitter by convention, colour by convention; atoms and Void [alone] exist in reality. (trans. Freeman 1948)[1], p. 92.

By convention sweet is sweet, bitter is bitter, hot is hot, cold is cold, color is color; but in truth there are only atoms and the void. (trans. Durant 1939)[2], Ch. XVI, §II, p. 353; citing C. Bakewell, Sourcebook in Ancient Philosophy, New York, 1909, "Fragment O" (Diels), p. 60

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I'm pulling this straight from Wikiquote

I don't find much to disagree with in what Don has written, and I think that those who imagine a necessary relation between materialism and nihilism are never going to be impressed by any amount of space we put between Epicurus and Democritus on this point.

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So when it is said that "everything else is merely THOUGHT to exist" or "exists by convention" (which implies "consensus?)

I certainly don't think this is quite what Democritus was driving at. Merely that these other aspects of nature are contingent on or emergent from matter. "Sweet" exists at the point of interaction between sense receptors on the tongue and one of a number of chemical compounds. When we say "it's sweet", I think what we really mean is "it tastes sweet [to me]". At this point we ask not the philosophical question but the Darwinian one; why do our bodies register sweetness as a reward?

And maybe now is a good time to remind everyone about the great and glorious Mochus! This Mochus, the alleged father of ancient atomism, was considered by several early English scientists to have been one and the same with Moses himself; and by this circuitous route they make God out to be the father of Atomism, and they further connect the Greek word atom with the Hebrew name Adam, the "first beginnings". Does atomism lead to nihilism or not? Per usual, they are trying to have it both ways.

In Greek:

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νόμωι (γάρ φησι) γλυκὺ καὶ νόμωι πικρόν, νόμωι θερμόν, νόμωι ψυχρόν, νόμωι χροιή, ἐτεῆι δὲ ἄτομα καὶ κενόν (Tetralogies of Thrasyllus, 9; Sext. Emp. adv. math. VII 135)

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By convention sweet and by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention color; but in reality atoms and void.

I'm sorry I couldn't make it!